Transcriber: Łukasz Wardziński Reviewer: Denise RQ
(Interactive performance)
(Applause)
I hope you've enjoyed the show as much as I did.
I'm a member of panGenerator,
a new media, arts, and design collective.
We've recently been labeled new media boysband.
We're responsible for this project called Dodecaudion
that hangs right here.
And we're currently developing it further with some other guys from Hedoco.
As Dodecaudion is obviously present in the title of my speech,
I'm going to briefly introduce you to the subject,
nonetheless, I am not going to focus solely on this device,
I'd rather talk more about all the things around it.
The main concept, the key idea behind this project,
was to create a new means of expression in electronic live music.
I'm aware that it's kind of a bold statement
- you've all just got the chance to judge by yourself
if we succeeded or not -
but we've found all those knobs and buttons commonly used
in common musical controllers
are not so compelling in terms of gestural expression,
so we've asked what we could do to change that.
Generally speaking, most of the time,
gestures are a byproduct of performing live music
on a particular instrument.
We've asked what we can do to change that, to reverse this karaoke,
reverse this order and make those gestures first class citizens
and then transform them into sound and music
in an abstract but visible way.
More than that, we didn't want to restrain the performers
to use their hands only.
We wanted to allow them to use their whole body movement,
to go around, even below the controller
which is, you have to admit, quite an unusual thing.
From the technical point of view, Dodecaudion is quite simple.
It's a wireless musical controller
- yes, it's really wireless, you have to believe me -
in terms of communication, we are working on a floating device
based on anti-gravity,
but for the time being, you have to bear with it.
It consists of 12 infrared distance sensors
enclosed in a skeleton
and an Arduino micro-controller which is the brain of this device,
that is actually so easy to use that even your grandma could do it.
Everything is enclosed in a skeleton
built with commonly used rapid prototyping techniques
such as 3D printing or laser cutting.
You know, that's kind of a basic thing.
If you have a brief, rudimentary expertise
in the field of product design, form design,
electronics, and programming,
you probably won't find anything particularly challenging here.
So, where is the catch?
Why is this dude standing in front of the audience
saying that this project is such a basic thing?
The answer is: I was struck by the realization
that even though linking bits and atoms together
has never been easier before,
you really can't see much of the projects
linking new media technology and design here in Poland.
We are pretty decent at creating furniture for example, and stuff like that,
but it's like this open source,
DIY electronics revolution
has never arrived here.
How come? Why is it like that?
I think that mainly the problem lies in communication,
because we've got all of those very talented designers,
well-educated engineers, and world acclaimed programmers,
but the problem is that those guys
are, like, sitting in their own cubes,
they don't communicate with each other very often.
They are kind of even distrustful.
That's a thing that is a wider problem here in Poland,
this problem of openness and of cooperation.
Dodecaudion, I hope, is an example of overcoming this problem.
Dodecaudion was born thanks to those conversations
between people with different skills, expertise,
and it's blending all those cubes together,
intersecting them,
and that's where inspiration, the main theme of today's event comes.
Because there is hardly anything more inspiring
than the collision of two different minds,
of two different people with different experiences and knowledge.
During such collision,
really vast amount of creative--
The problem is though that we lack spaces for such collisions to occur,
a place where those different people could meet, could talk together
and eventually, could work together on some projects.
I am not [talking] here about other Dodecaudions,
because that's kind of a crazy, geeky musical experiment.
But if you provide those talented people
with basic tools like 3D printers,
open source plotters, laser cutters,
A bunch of electronics, soldering irons, et cetera,
you really could expect great things to emerge,
real solutions for problems of an ever-changing world.
What's more, you can think of it as a good investment,
because creating such space, commonly called a media lab--
It needs a very low input,
but it could provide
really great outcomes, even financially.
Maybe I'm being naive or idealistic here,
but I hope that even though
the Dodecaudion is not a spectacular invention
nor it's a second iPhone that earned zillion of dollars,
I hope it still has some inspirational value.
And I hope that some of you will receive the message,
and if you're somehow connected with companies or institutions
that could provide support for creating such spaces I've mentioned,
you should really consider to do so.
Because it's really worth it and now is the time.
Thank you.
(Applause)